Fear of the mentally ill misplaced
originally published:
19th November 2009
Flying in the face of public opinion findings published in the medical journal Schizophrenia Bulletin, show that people who are mentally unwell are among those least likely to commit murder.
These latest finding confirm data from a growing body of research which shows that people who use mental health services are in fact more likely to be a danger to themselves than to others .
This new research shows that people have only a one in 14 million risk of being killed by a stranger who has been diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia.
‘What the paper shows, more than anything else, is that the public fear of the mentally ill is completely misplaced. These events are so rare that they are almost impossible to study, yet the fear of serious violence by the mentally ill is a major cause of stigma,' Dr Matthew Large of the Prince of Wales university said.
This latest research shows that homicides of strangers by people with schizophrenia are exceptionally rare and unpredictable events, showing that the perception of people who use mental health services as dangerous is completely unwarranted.
